Nia Honjou
|Honjō Nia}} is the ninth Spirit to appear in the series. Summary Nia, also known as the Second Spirit, is a Spirit that appeared on Earth some time after the First Spirit appeared and is claimed to be the only one who knows any information about the First Spirit and her whereabouts. At some point, the D.E.M. captured her by unknown means and she fell into a comatose state. She was first mentioned in Volume 7, where Kurumi only decides to help Shido rescue Tohka to create a chance for her to find and rescue her. However, it turns out that Nia wasn't held captive in that particular DEM facility. In Volume 12, Nia's location was revealed to be at the Neryl Island, a DEM's private island in the Pacific Ocean and was being moved to another place through a DEM transport. Kurumi attempted to free her with a swarm of clones but failed to do so as the clones were defeated by the new Adeptus 2. Nia, however, reacted to Shido's Spirit Wave upon him going berserk. Eventually, she managed to escape thanks to Shido shooting down the aircraft for her. When Kurumi found the wreckage of the transport aircraft, Nia had already left. Appearance Nia has short, ash gray hair and icy blue eyes. Nia's Astral Dress takes on the appearance similar to that of a nun. Her Astral Dress is an ink-colored semi-transparent fabric that completely displays her figure. The collar of her dress takes on the shape of a pen tip, and the middle part of her Astral Dress is patterned as a manga panel, both of which referencing her job as a manga artist. She wears long black laced boots and a black veil that is attached to a pen and a feather duster. There is also a golden cross-connected to a beaded rope, surrounding the waist of the dress. Light Novel Volume 13, Afterword When she is not using her Astral Dress, she wears a pair of dark red square-framed glasses. Her three sizes are B76/W59/H80. Personality Nia has a very energetic personality that allows her to get along with everyone. It also helped her become familiar with the society very quickly, along with the aid of her Angel. This kind of personality was also shown throughout her first date with Shido, where she maintained a playful attitude while teasing him. However, thanks to her powers, Nia began to lose her ability to open up to humans. Her omniscient Angel ended up backfiring on her after she became curious about her origins. The feeling of distrust started sitting in her heart after she had learned about her past self. Nia also started checking each person she knew and became disgusted with humans after discovering the dark side of humanity through . It ultimately made her distance herself from her acquaintances and ended up making her alone. Since she could not live without coming into contact with anyone, Nia decided to put on a mask and treated everyone as if they were NPCs in a game. Afterward, she began to immerse herself in the 2D world, since it was the only thing she could open her heart to without fear of disappointment. The characters in that world were very straightforward yet sophisticated at the same time. Best of all, she couldn’t detect any malice from them from using , and they could never betray her. However, her interactions with Shido proved that she still had hope that she could meet someone whom she can open her heart to, something that Westcott took advantage of substantially. Nia also has a significant hate towards spoilers. She does not like spoiling something to someone and also hates being spoiled. However, she will disregard this if she is very angry about certain things. During her conversation with Kurumi, Nia also remarked that she does not want to use her powers to start a conflict and would not reveal any dangerous information, even if the other party wanted it from her. She is also very passionate about her Otaku hobbies, becoming furious after she found out Shido was acting out of character while cosplaying as her favorite character, Tokiya, to make her fall for him. Due to this hobby, she often makes up nicknames for the other Spirits. She is a heavy drinker and fills her kitchen with alcohol, which is otherwise empty because she exclusively eats instant food or take-out unless Shido is available to cook. History Background Nia was once an ordinary human, though little is known about her previous life. Ever since she was young, Nia has loved the 2D world of manga and video games. She apparently drew her first original character all the way back in grade school and she even won an award during her first year of high school. However, around 27-28 years ago, she self-described herself as having suffered from an incident that made her lose the will to live. It was then that a mysterious person gave her the Sephira Crystal containing Rasiel. She subsequently bonded with it, turning her into a Spirit in the process. During this time, she also lost her memories because of unknown reasons. While at first causing spacequakes like the other Spirits, at some point, Nia was able to reintegrate herself with society. However, becoming curious about where she came from, she used her Angel, , and found out about her former life. Following this, Nia started to use to find information on everyone she encountered. As a result, she discovered the dark side of humanity, causing her to believe she couldn't trust anyone. This caused Nia to seclude herself into her 2D world, since the characters in there could never harbor negative feelings towards her. However, she still wanted to live in modern society, so contact with other people was unavoidable. As a result, Nia started to treat the others as if they were just characters in a video game; communicating with them but having no real interest in them as people. Nia especially liked a manga called "Chronicle" and its main character, Tokiya, which caused her to aspire to become a manga artist. Around 10 years ago, she achieved this dream when was able to get a job as a manga artist under the pen name of "Souji Honjou". The Manga written by her, "Silver Bullet", ended up becoming a financial hit. During this time, she befriended Hiroki Takajou at a publisher’s party, but later cut off all contact to avoid the temptation of looking into her past. However, around 5 years ago, Nia's existence was discovered by DEM, who sent Ellen Mira Mathers after her. Ellen managed to defeat Nia and capture her alive by catching her by surprise through a sneak attack. The fans of her manga only knew that she had disappeared and it was believed to be because of an argument between her and her editor. While in DEM's captivity, Westcott and Ellen put Nia through horrible physical torture to make her go into her Inverse Form. However, no matter what they did, she did not assume her Inverse Form. In the end, Westcott used a Realizer to seal away the memories of her torture in order to prevent Nia's consciousness from collapsing. Afterwards, DEM kept her in an artificial coma using Realizers and stored her away in a secret facility on an abandoned island in the Pacific Ocean. Media *Light Novel **''Mention:'' ***Volume 7 **''Appearances'' ***Volume 12-21 ***Date A Live Encore 6-9 Powers & Abilities DAL v13 03.jpg|Nia using Rasiel DAL v19 07.png|Nia with MARIA Spirit Form While Nia's powers excel in storing and gathering information, it is much weaker than the other Spirits in terms of outright combat. Her strength is further inhibited by her pacifistic nature, which prevents her from tapping into the more violent potential uses of her Angel. After Nia had a part of her Qlipha Crystal extracted from her body, she still has the ability to summon . However, she notes that its ability to give information has gotten weaker, with some information coming out as indecipherable. She also notes that she has lost the power to control the future. However, she states that since and use to be the same embodiment, she can use her ability to restrict Westcott's ability to search information using . Additionally, this shared duality also allowed Nia, with the help of Shido's fantasy counterpart, to use to stabilize a gateway connecting the fantasy world with the real world. However, upon gaining a power up from Mio Takamiya, Nia regains her ability to fully use both her Astral Dress and . Spirit Data Rasiel Angel: |Kokushō Henchitsu|lit = Tome of Revelation}} Weapon: 'Book [[Astral Dresses|'Astral Dress]]: |Shin'i Reisō: Niban|lit= Spirit Dress of God's Authority, Number 2}} Nia's Angel, , is a book that can give the user information about anything that has ever happened in the world, no matter where and when. The user of becomes near omniscient. Nia describes this ability as "a super powerful search engine", where one has to focus on the information one seeks before arriving at an answer. However, in order to use this ability she has to consciously think about the subject she is looking into and her Angel does not automatically detect any danger coming to the user. It is also incapable of giving information about a person's inner thoughts and events that have not occurred yet. Another limitation is that the Angel can only give facts, as it cannot tell Nia subjective information like what she should do when she's unsure of herself. Additionally, it also gave her illegible information about the person who turned her into a Spirit. However, she theorized that this may be because of that person's abilities. She can use her Angel for surveillance in constantly monitoring other peoples' locations, but will lose track of them if she does not maintain her concentration. * : Everything written in is fact; therefore, everything that Nia writes in the book will become reality. However, it takes time for the event to be written down, especially since Nia prefers to draw a manga illustration instead of just writing some text. However, the ability to change the future is not absolute, as Shido could resist future describing when channeling the powers of the Angels of the Spirits he had already sealed. Nia also adds that it is unlike for this power to work on a fellow Spirit with a full Astral Dress equipped. Date A Live Volume 20 Chapter 3 * : After regaining her full Astral Dress due to being empowered by Mio, Nia recreates her own version of the Nibelcole through a combination of her Angel and Ratatoskr's technology. In the process, she is able to give physical form to MARIA: Fraxinus's autonomous AI. Inverse Form Demon King: |Jinshoku Henchitsu|lit=Tome of Divine Corruption}} Weapon: 'Book [[Astral Dresses|'Astral Dress]]: ''Unnamed'' Nia Inversed after being forced to remember the excruciating pain she suffered in her suppressed memories of DEM's torture. Her Demon King retains 's information gathering and future describing, with the latter ability now utilized at a much faster rate than in her normal state against the Spirits in their limited Astral Dresses. It can also summon shadow-like creatures from the pages. She cannot distinguish friend from foe in this state. Because her Inversion was caused by her agony, Shido started to reawaken her consciousness with 's pain-relieving Requiem. However, her Qlipha Crystal was extracted by Artemisia Bell Ashcroft and given to Westcott before he could properly change her back to normal. Quotes *(To Shido Itsuka) "—Isn't it your job to make the Spirits fall for you boy? No………Itsuka Shido-kun?” ''Light Novel Volume 13, Chapter 1. *(To Kotori Itsuka) ''“Pure Spirits……………? But, weren’t all Spirits once human?” ''Light Novel Volume 13, Epilogue. *(To Elliot Baldwin Woodman) ''“Then let me ask you again. —As one of the original founders of DEM Industries, thirty years ago when you caused the appearance of the First Spirit. Why do you still hide your identity and spout these high-sounding words?” Light Novel Volume 14, Chapter 3. Trivia *Nia has the character for "Two" in her name (「二」亜) as well as her pen name Souji (蒼「二」), referring to the Second Sephira on Kabbalah's Tree of Life: "Wisdom". This is shown by her possessing an omniscient Angel that allows her to know about everything in the world. **The first kanji in her surname ("Hon", 本) means "Book", fitting both her career as an author and her Angel. *The name of her Astral Dress, Yod, is the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the first in the Tetragrammaton. *Rasiel's name also means "Secret of God", "Keeper of Secrets" or "Angel of Mysteries". *Nia was the first Spirit to have her Qlipha Crystal revealed, and the first to have it stolen from her as well. *According to the Volume 13 afterword, Nia's short hair and glasses were intended as an unconventional design for light novel girls. *Her favorite thing is alcohol, and her least favorite is a gloomy atmosphere. Date a Live Material 1.5 References }} Navigation Category:Characters Category:Female Category:Spirit Category:Sephira Spirits Category:Inverse Spirit Category:Ratatoskr